Using first principles thinking, let's look at the core concept of interviewing. When creating a candidate pool you're looking for the best qualified, best performing, and best fit candidates to join your company's culture. Then, during the interview process, you'll be assessing each candidate individually to see who's a natural fit in each area.

Before you can assess a candidate, you need to define what "best fit" means. Which involves identifying what core principles make up your company's culture, what skills will be required to perform well in the role, and what qualifications are necessary for success.

This process can be time-consuming and often subject to bias, which can hinder finding the best candidate for the job. This is where AI interview software comes into play. By automating parts of this process, AI interview software can help streamline and improve the hiring process- increasing objectivity and removing bias.

For instance, if you're hiring Account Executives (AEs), and your sales teams use Hubspot or Salesforce, is it more important that they have a basic understanding of the inner workings of your CRM or the ability to sell? My personal opinion would be sales, but that's going to be organizationally specific.

Next, you have to define what your culture "is." Is it staying late? Having fun? Is it working hard or smart? Is it being nice to one another or winning at all costs? Is your culture collaborative or "everyone for themselves?"

A few years ago, I went to work for a brokerage company that touted their inclusive culture - yet they were 99% male, all white, with an "everyone-for-themselves" mentality. While there's much to be said about this type of "boiler room" culture, that's not the focus of our content today. The point is, that they sold themselves as something they were not, and in the process, created a misalignment of expectations, which led to high turnover and poor performance in new employees.

The same could also be said for companies that focus too much on culture and place little value on individual or team performance. We've seen the effects of this in the startup world as low accountability and poor performance have driven valuations down dramatically when the wrong people are put into places of leadership.

This is where job interview AI like Pillar's interview intelligence can play a huge role. Assessing talent based on cultural fit, technical skills, personality, and performance gives the interviewer a far more holistic assessment of the person they're interviewing. Plus, Pillar has an entire library of interviewer questions to help HR, hiring managers, and recruiters identify the best talent for their open roles.

Interviewer AI Interview Questions can be added to your screenings and interviews with just a few clicks and work alongside the AI to create a complete picture of your candidates. This not only helps you make better hiring decisions but also makes the interview process more efficient and effective.

In addition to streamlining the hiring process, AI interview software can also help reduce bias and promote diversity in the workplace. By using algorithms and data analysis, AI can objectively evaluate candidates based on their skills and qualifications rather than factors such as gender, race, or age. This can lead to a more diverse and inclusive workforce, which has been shown to improve company performance and culture.

Best AI Interview Software

There are quite a few AI recruiting tools available today. G2 listed more than 300 last time I checked. Some focus primarily on sourcing or screening candidates, while others offer a more comprehensive suite of features like Pillar's interview intelligence software.

But what makes for the best AI interview software? Here are some key elements to consider when evaluating different options:

- Accuracy and reliability: The most important factor in any AI-powered tool is its ability to accurately assess candidates based on defined criteria. Look for software that has a proven track record of accurately predicting job performance.

- Customizability: Every company has its own unique culture, values, and requirements for each role. The best AI interview bots will allow for customization and tailoring to fit your specific needs.

- Ease of use: You want a tool that is easy to implement and use, with intuitive interfaces and helpful support. This will ensure that your team can seamlessly incorporate the software into their hiring process.

- Integration: Ideally, your AI interview software should integrate with other tools and systems you already use, such as applicant tracking systems or CRMs. This will help streamline your entire recruitment process. AI recruiting companies are starting to get better at integrating their tools into other solutions to create a complete stack.

- Bias reduction: Look for features that actively work to reduce bias and promote diversity in hiring. This can include things like blind screening, diverse panel interviewing, and training for hiring managers on unconscious bias.

- Cost: AI interview software can range from free to expensive. Consider your budget and compare the features and benefits of different options to find the best fit for your company.

One thing we'd also like to add here is interviewer coaching. What good is a solution that collects all that data if it can't help you hone your skills as an interviewer? This is what separates some of the tools we'd put into the average category from the best AI interview software.

Interviewer coaching is a critical part of the hiring process and can have a powerful positive or negative impact on your team. This, in turn, contributes to the team culture by identifying and selecting the right individuals who fit the organization's culture and possess the requisite skills and personality for the job.

Also, consider that the right interviewer coaching tools allow for increased standardization. This means more consistency across your interviews and a reduction in bias which promotes a fair and inclusive place for people to do great work.

AI Sourcing Tools

The first tool in your hiring tech stack has to be an AI sourcing tool. The world is moving too fast today to sift through resumes, filter through job boards, and contact potential candidates manually. AI sourcing tools can do all of that for you and more.

Using data from various sources like social media profiles, resumes, and job boards, tools like HireEZ can identify potential candidates for your open roles based on specific criteria. This saves time and effort while also increasing the likelihood of finding top talent.

Then you can plug those candidate profiles into an applicant tracking system like Lever to keep track of your candidates and manage them efficiently. Or, you can use an all-in-one solution like Breezy HR that combines sourcing, screening, interviewing, and managing candidates in one platform.

If you have the budget, an AI assistant like Paradox's Olivia can greatly help you schedule and communicate with candidates, reducing administrative tasks and improving the candidate experience- and, an AI-powered interview intelligence software can run in the background of your screenings and interviews to help you objectively assess each candidate.

There are also interview writer AIs and interview question generators, but these tools are generally thought of as additions to your core tech stack. An AI sourcing solution, ATS system, digital assistant, and interview intelligence make up a powerful combination of sourcing and qualifying tools to help you identify the best talent for your company.

No one tool does it all, well- so choose wisely and consider what features will be most beneficial to your hiring process. With the right AI interview software, you can save time, reduce bias, and make more informed hiring decisions that lead to a stronger and more diverse workforce.

Before we close, let's turn to a topic that's been top of mind for hiring professionals recently. "AI bias."  Over the last year, we've seen Google, Amazon, and others experience bias in their AI hiring tools. This bias was generally directed at women and brought a necessary conversation to the forefront of everyone's mind- specifically, "What data are we using to train our interview AIs?"

The reason we must ask this question is that AI hiring tools are only as good as the data they train on. If this data is biased, the AI itself will be biased. At Pillar, we integrated diversity and inclusion methodologies into our Interview AI from the start- and made sure humans were involved in each stage of the interview. We did this to address potential challenges and ensure that AI bias does not impact anyone using our suite of tools. Our goal has always been to create a fair and unbiased platform that benefits everyone and this is not possible without some human oversight.

We like to look at it this way, humans are included where a personal touch will increase the candidate experience (CX) and your brand's equity to the market, and tasks are automated that don't require human intervention. This approach ensures both fairness and efficiency in the hiring process and creates a better experience for candidates and interviewers alike.

If you'd like to see how our suite of AI-powered interview intelligence solutions can help you make better hires for less, book your demo today to chat with someone from our team. We'd love to show you how customers have increased diversity hiring by 50%+ using Pillar.